Poems
Published on 27. September 2018
256 pages
978-1-78410-652-2 (ISBN)
Description
The Poetry Book Society Autumn 2018 Recommended Translation
Asked to name the great Latin love poets, today's reader is likely to offer Catullus, Ovid, Virgil, Horace. Propertius, a successor of the first and influential peer to the others, has not been blessed by posterity. Yet at their best his poems match any of the period. They are poems of love, of desire, of insecurity and obsession: of struggle, too, as they resist the Augustan Empire's attempts to turn its love poets into propagandists. The result is a highly refined irony, a subtlety of tone and humour that is unique. Patrick Worsnip's translations bring out Propertius' playfulness and his psychological acuity, reinstating his poems at the heart of Latin literature's golden age.
Asked to name the great Latin love poets, today's reader is likely to offer Catullus, Ovid, Virgil, Horace. Propertius, a successor of the first and influential peer to the others, has not been blessed by posterity. Yet at their best his poems match any of the period. They are poems of love, of desire, of insecurity and obsession: of struggle, too, as they resist the Augustan Empire's attempts to turn its love poets into propagandists. The result is a highly refined irony, a subtlety of tone and humour that is unique. Patrick Worsnip's translations bring out Propertius' playfulness and his psychological acuity, reinstating his poems at the heart of Latin literature's golden age.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Carcanet Press Ltd
File size
0,48 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-78410-652-2 (9781784106522)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Sextus Propertius | Patrick Worsnip
Poems
Book
09/2018
Carcanet Classics
€20.00
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Persons
Sextus Propertius (c. 55 - 15 BC) was an elegiac poet of the Augustan age, born and raised in Umbria. Little biographical detail survives beyond what can be inferred from his poems. He published his first book of verse around 30 BC, and at least three more in his lifetime. He was in the circle of the influential patron of the arts Maecenas. A successor of Catullus and rough contemporary of Vergil, Ovid and Horace, he is perhaps best known today through Ezra Pound's experimental 'homage' of 1919. Patrick Worsnip was born in Gloucester in 1948 and read Classics and Modern Languages at Merton College, Oxford. He worked for more than 40 years as a correspondent for Reuters news agency, with postings in Europe, the Middle East and the United States, and covering stories ranging from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the wars in the Gulf. Since retirement in 2012, he has devoted himself to translation, mainly of poetry. His version of the complete Poems of Propertius (Carcanet Press, 2018) won a Poetry Book Society recommendation. He lives in Cambridge. Patrick Worsnip was born in Gloucester in 1948 and read Classics and Modern Languages at Merton College, Oxford. He worked for more than 40 years as a correspondent for Reuters news agency, with postings in Europe, the Middle East and the United States, and covering stories ranging from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the wars in the Gulf. Since retirement in 2012, he has devoted himself to translation, mainly of poetry. His version of the complete Poems of Propertius (Carcanet Press, 2018) won a Poetry Book Society recommendation. He lives in Cambridge.
